North Korea’s Intimidation Strategy – Time for the U.S. to Get Some Headlines Too

If you are like me, probably you wish to wake up one morning and not see or hear a story about North Korea; however, that seems unlikely to happen any time soon. Leader Kim Jung-Un and his spin masters have cleverly positioned themselves onto the front page and into the top stories on CNN and other TV news stations. We hear all about missiles that can reach the U.S. mainland, how Seoul will become a “sea of fire,” and basically that Kim is like a gunslinger with an itchy trigger finger.

Well, all of this has to reach a saturation point, but for now it seems to be working in North Korea’s favor in that it keeps the country in the news. Instead of being a small country on the periphery of importance, Kim has jettisoned himself into that dubious cast of characters on the world political stage that include Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, and the late Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

Now is the time for the U.S. to get some headlines of its own, and the way to do that is not to counter with defense systems being put in place, recalling our diplomats, and trying to sanction North Korea into compliance. None of these things are working with the volatile Kim, so it is time to take a different course of action.

The first and most crucial step Mr. Obama should make is to name Dennis Rodman, the former outlandish NBA star, as Ambassador to North Korea. I am completely serious on this issue, for Mr. Kim found a kindred spirit in Mr. Rodman (who said that Kim would be his “friend for life”). Mr. Kim’s love of basketball is an important link between him and America. Hitler liked King Kong, Saddam Hussein enjoyed American spirits, and Usama bin Laden apparently loved American reality TV shows, but no one ever tried to exploit those avenues in the past.

Naming Rodman ambassador will grab international attention and plenty of press; it will also signal to Mr. Kim that Mr. Obama is serious about connecting with him and working on a relationship based on respect. Mr. Kim seeks to be respected as a leader, so that will be accomplished with this move.

The next step is to get some NBA games to be played in Pyongyang, with Rodman and Kim on the sidelines. More press will follow and Rodman can work his magic on Kim, perhaps even present him with a series of gifts (like basketballs signed by Michael Jordan – a Kim hero) and ply him with some KFC.

The final step Mr. Obama should make is to offer to play a game of one-on-one with Mr. Kim. Can you imagine the headlines? Mr. Obama has some serious on court skills, but this is no time to showcase them. Mr. Obama has to do exactly what I do when I play games with my four year old – Obama has to let him win, but Kim can never know that (wink, wink).

Overall, some may dismiss this strategy as ridiculous, but I think it has an excellent chance to succeed. Mr. Kim will be able to tell all his friends, “I beat Obama! I beat Obama!” In such a simple but significant way, Obama will be the real winner, as will America and the world.

We have always heard that Fidel Castro wanted to be a major league baseball player, but he didn’t make it and we all know how that worked out. Mr. Kim could be emboldened by his defeat of Obama on the court, try out for the Lakers, and the wisest move would be to give him a job. Yes, that means he would be making headlines again, but the kind of which would be the best publicity for all parties.

About Victor Lana

Victor Lana's stories, articles, and poems have been published in literary magazines and online. His books 'A Death in Prague' (2002), 'Move' (2003), 'The Savage Quiet September Sun: A Collection of 9/11 Stories' (2005), and 'Like a Passing Shadow' (2009) are available in print, online, and as e-books. His latest books 'If the Fates Allow: New York Christmas Stories,' 'Garden of Ghosts,' and 'Flashes in the Pan' are available exclusively on Amazon. He has won the National Arts Club Award for Poetry, but has concentrated on writing mostly fiction and non-fiction prose in recent years. He has worked as a faculty advisor to school literary magazines and enjoys the creative process as a writer, editor, and collaborator. He has been with 'Blogcritics Magazine' since July 2005 and has written well over 500 articles; previously co-head sports editor, he now is a Culture and Society editor. Having traveled extensively, Victor has visited six continents and intends to get to Antarctica someday where he figures a few ideas for new stories await him.

Astonishing that you would believe anything uttered by Kim, who like his father and grandfather before him, is a ruthless, cruel dictator whose policies are systematically starving his people to death, even as he spends NK’s limited resources on nuclear warheads and their delivery systems.

As for Rodman. He was an ass in terms of his public persona on the basketball court years ago, and these days one can only marvel at the naivete and stupidity of a man who, in reference to Kim, proudly announces to the world that Kim is his “friend.”

Even for “the former outlandish NBA star,” that is a outlandish, naive and abysmally stupid comment.

The efforts that Mr. Lana suggests would perhaps be more effective and certainly less expensive than those my esteemed guest author, Senator Ima Librul, (L. Utopia), reported here today. Perhaps his suggestions can serve as a backup.

Glenn Contrarian

Um, Dan –

Given the track record of the conservatives in the eight years before Obama showed up, y’all don’t exactly have a lot of room to talk.

Costello

You know who doesn’t recognize satire? Someone who thinks Ima Librul is funny. Holy smokes, the kids who dump a gallon of milk on themselves on YouTube show more creativity

Instead of concerning themselves with North Korea, Americans would do better to concern themselves with the distinctly un-American activities of their own Department of Homeland Security.

If I lived in the former home of the free, the news that the DHS has recently purchased 1.8 billion rounds of hollow point ammunition (illegal to use in actual wars!) or 3,000 mine resistant armoured vehicles would be giving me cause for concern.

As it has also defined a potential domestic threat as people who are “suspicious of centralized federal authority” or “reverent of individual liberty”, I wonder how many of BC’s community would self-define as a potential terrorist?

Even though I have no interest in violent revolution or terrorism – and fortunately am not a US citizen – I certainly meet those two tests. Indeed, if one of you posted this information, you might become a person of interest simply for doing so.

As the only way to determine who amongst you is a potential threat is to surveill you all, it seems likely that more or less everybody in the USA, or at least all their public utterances and activities, are being watched.

In more news, the DHS can now search all safety deposit boxes in the USA without a warrant and your bank isn’t even allowed to tell you that your box has been searched as that would amount to aiding and abetting a suspected domestic terrorist.

Amongst other items, the DHS considers “bar gold, gold coins, firearms of any kind unless manufactured prior to 1878, documents such as passports or foreign bank account records, pornography or any material that, in the opinion of the agent, shall be deemed of to be of a contraband nature” as potential tools of terror.

The sections of the DHS that conduct all this activity are disarmingly named as “Fusion Centers” and spends a significant proportion of the $100 billion annual budget given to the DHS.

A US senate sub-committee investigation into these “Fusion Centers” found that “the fusion centers often produced irrelevant, useless or inappropriate intelligence reporting to DHS, and many produced no intelligence reporting whatsoever”.

Any similarity to the secret police or neighbour informant spying so typical of the Soviet Bloc countries prior to the end of the Cold War is not entirely co-incidental…

We all wish North Korea would disappear into the ocean (and I mean that literally) but it probably won’t. Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and Dennis Rodman were Chicago’s finest in a slightly earlier era, we prefer no deprecation.
It is getting a little out of hand, the way these comments take a hasty turn from the article that precedes them. It was last week, as I recall that an article detailing the sufferings of Jesus Christ was followed by a long winded discussion of SPORTS TRIVIA. It may be coincidence that Lana was victimized in that broo-ha too.
So in the spirit herein discussed, today’s news says NK is commencing another nuclear test. At this early point no one has suggested that the NK science team is NOT preparing a test, rather, affixing a nuclear tip to a pre-existing missile. We should consider that Kim just really means it.

cindy

@6

Just bought a house in Broward, Clav. F warrants! I can’t replace an air conditioner, or my front door without a permit (I think you need to include a full house plan with elevations to do either thing). And apparently if I were to have weeds more than 8″ high or paint my house what someone else deems to be an inappropriate number of colors (no murals, of course) I can be fined daily. Actual police are responsible for paroling territories and finding violations.

I think this is probably partially to compensate for a lack of state tax–permit fees and fines.

Sad to hear about the passing of Former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Clav

No, you don’t understand, Chris. My home can be invaded by the government without even probable cause, let alone a court order, because, although it is my home, it is not a conventional dwelling (i.e. a house, condo, apartment, etc.), it is in fact, under the law, not a dwelling at all, but a conveyance, capable of carrying contraband, which is why the authorities can board and search without the usual safeguards provided to “a man’s castle,” and as such, boats have never had either the probable cause or the warrant protections that land-based homes have.

cindy

Don’t worry, in time, neither will houses.

Clav

Cindy,

Many of those restrictions you mention have nothing to do with and are not imposed by the government, but by Home Owner’s Associations, and are usually set up at the time of construction by the developer to make the properties more attractive to the people with no rectums who migrate to Florida when they retire.

And there are many such; many neighborhood don’t allow the overnight parking of pickup trucks in driveways, for example. I know of one area here in Miami-Dade county in which the colors you paint the interior of your house are restricted by the HOA.

Clav, of course, I knew you’d moved onto a boat full time, but it had slipped my mind.

That also means that they could also just seize it any time they wanted to, without having to have any reason at all.

It’s so depressingly ironic watching the USA turn itself into Cold War Russia.

Glenn Contrarian

I’ve yet to have a problem with our government, but I’ve had my share of frustrations with HOA’s…which is why I don’t choose to live in such places anymore.

Clav

But you see, Glenn, the difference is that with a bad HOA you can choose not to live there.

Not so with the government.

Glenn Contrarian

Clav –

You know better than I that you can choose not to live in America, too.

Dr Dreadful

If I lived in the former home of the free, the news that the DHS has recently purchased 1.8 billion rounds of hollow point ammunition (illegal to use in actual wars!) or 3,000 mine resistant armoured vehicles would be giving me cause for concern.

Chris, when you consider the number of armed agencies, including the Coast Guard, that come under the purview of the DHS, and when you consider that even a small agency routinely uses up several million rounds a year just in practice, a purchase of 1.6 (not 1.8) billion rounds over 5 years really isn’t all that remarkable.

Law enforcement agencies use hollow point rounds because of their stopping power. Their ammunition needs aren’t the same as those of the military, who often lay down fire not necessarily with the intent to kill, but to suppress or overwhelm.

I don’t dispute that the DHS is uncomfortably Orwellian both in name and concept, and needs watching, but repeating misinformation just muddies the water.

Dr Joseph S Maresca

I don’t think that Kim is necessarily the biggest problem. The greatest trouble is with the bureaucratic culture and expectations of the entrenched politicos around him. It will take a long time to change thinking in N.Korea. Dennis Rodman can help to lower the verbal hostilities which surface with greater frequency. Basically, the leadership must come to embrace peace over continuous tension and political entrenchment.

I think that Dennis Rodman reminds Kim of the possibilities for North Koreans to advance in this dynamic global culture which has eluded the N.Korean populace for many decades. Kim wants the vast consumer benefits of the West but he and his entourage are unwilling to pay the price for peace. That price is peaceful coexistence with a shedding of the North Korean military industrial complex in the way Japan did after WW2.

Thanks for the clarification, Doc. I really ought to get into the habit of using Snopes.

That said, the USA is definitely turning into something that is very worrying, and I note that you didn’t rebut my other points…

cindy

13 – Clav,

All the restrictions I mentioned are gov’t. Broward County and Hollywood. No HOA here. Just a plain old house in a plain old neighborhood.

Must be different in Dade. I was telling the home seller that I learned on the gov’t site that if you had a gravel driveway in 1986, you can still have one now. After that you will have to build a concrete or black driveway. That is the law and that you may not park on your grass either.

She explained to me that grass is grandfathered in my new house as it was grass since 1971 and she actually had to contest a code violation notice she received for parking on her grass.

He took a picture! lol

cindy

“black” should be block or blacktop

Dr Joseph S Maresca

We should look at how to limit the Patriot Act, as well as constitutional issues involved with ceding too much power and discretion to agencies like Homeland Security and others.

John Lake

We should be aware of a government that is gradually, whether intentionally or as an afterthought, limiting our liberties. We permit it, telling ourselves “We have nothing to hide” until we can’t protest openly, write in antagonism of the government, or have the freedoms, as Rick Santorum would restrict, to for example view people sans clothes.
We need monitoring of food and medicine, and medical procedures, we need a valid police, but we need to be vigilant to assure that our freedoms remain intact.

Dr Joseph S Maresca

We need to consume real food before affordable health care becomes a reality anywhere in the world. At bottom, bad food makes our health care systems far more expensive than they need to be. The movement toward roof farming in NYC and elsewhere seeks to change that calculus.

Dr Dreadful

Perhaps Mr Rodman can point out to Kim that his friends in Beijing seem to be losing their considerable patience, and there are signs that they may be preparing to throw him under the bus.

I’m fairly sure I am closer to the truth than many people because I don’t have as many beliefs to get in the way…

Glenn Contrarian

That’s the thing, Chris – when one has a certain set of beliefs (and again, I’m not referring to religion here), one should be able to show how those beliefs relate to the world.

For instance, those who believe that we should continue the war on drugs (which both you and I oppose IIRC) should be able to show in concrete terms how their way benefits society. Personally I think the available evidence shows just the opposite.

Same thing for libertarians – they should be able to show in concrete terms how their way leads to greater prosperity for a nation. I see no such evidence that they can point to.

So for your particular set of beliefs – or paradigms or philosophies or whatever – you should be able to show in concrete terms how your way would benefit society or lead to national prosperity. But I admit I know little of what you think – as far as I’ve seen you spend more time saying what’s wrong than you do saying what’s right.

So please point out what you believe to be right. Say not only what you oppose, but what you support. Perhaps you have and I just haven’t seen it.

Glenn, I don’t know what is the more impressive, your “ability” to find alternative meaning where there is none or your ability to spin conversations from the subject they were addressing to whatever it is you want to talk about. Either way, I’m not playing your game.

Glenn Contrarian

And what’s equally impressive are your abilities to take offense where none is meant, to ascribe underlying motives where none were intended, and to declare unsavory personal attributes in others with wild inaccuracy.

So now that we got that out of the way and we now know what each of us are, what do you really think?

Glenn, I was actually incredibly patient with both of them, possibly too patient, but you carry right on with your self-indulgent subjectivity and blatant disregard for the facts…

Glenn Contrarian

Chris –

Yeah, they had their issues, but – and this is particularly true in Ruvy’s case – it was a disservice to this blog to ban them. There’s an old saying: you can draw more flies with honey than with vinegar. Ruvy was crusty, yeah, but even when he strongly disagreed with me he was never so insulting as you have been…

…and I really have a problem with hypocrisy.

To be fair – which is something seem to think that I’m incapable of – by nature of your position you had to see many more of their posts than I, and so I would not have seen what you saw. But just as you feel you are able to judge my personality by my posts (and don’t pretend you don’t feel that way), your own personality shows through your own posts. I remember distinctly one – ONE – post I made that if taken the wrong way could be seen as insulting to you, and you immediately jumped on it as if I’d gone out of my way to impugn your character. You, on the other hand, have insulted me many, many times – I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that such are in the significant majority of your posts addressed to me…

…and it is this insulting attitude of yours towards me that makes me take up for Irv and particularly Ruvy. If you act this way towards me when I’ve insulted you FAR less than you have me, then why should I take your word about how rude and crude Ruvy and Irv were?

Doc takes up for you, and his word as always carries significant weight with me. Why? Because while he could be as richly and devastatingly insulting as his (and your) British heritage allows, he refrains from doing so, but strives to remain levelheaded always. You should learn from him, as I wish I could. It is because of his word that I would question myself when it comes to Ruvy and Irv, but it is because of your continual insults that I remain convinced of your error.

Like I said, honey is far more effective than vinegar. Doc knows this instinctively. You should learn it, too – you’d be far more effective if you did.

Glenn, I don’t think you are in a position to evaluate the situation with regard to Ruvy or anybody else that has unfortunately been banned from this site.

You are also confusing different issues; as I have told you on many more than one occasion but don’t seem able to take on board, nobody has been banned for mere rudeness or insulting people.

This site has always been very liberal and accepted a broad range of opinions and behaviour, but it does have limits, very generous limits in my personal opinion.

One compelling example, to me at least, is the way you so doggedly and mistakenly keep on referring to “rude and crude” with regard to Ruvy and Irv. It seems that no matter how many times I tell you it wasn’t that that got them banned, you can’t accept it.

Furthermore, even if it were true that I insulted you, why would that relate to my honesty with regard to any other matter? Insulting people and telling the truth are discrete processes.

I don’t actually accept that I have insulted you anyway; I have been what I consider to be righteously angry with you and dismissive of your more absurd or confused remarks, but not what I would consider gratuitously insulting, although it is true that many Americans seem to be more bourgeois and prissy about language and less able to handle robust debate.

Although you clearly have a problem believing it, I don’t judge your personality by your posts, just the posts themselves; I don’t really think enough of a person comes through to be confident that one knows what another commenter is really like or whether one would get on with them in real life.

It’s interesting that you think I do judge you, but I think that is you projecting, because you seem far more judgemental than me, which is consistent with the faithist mindset, as is the persistent attempt to divine meaning between the lines, a habit I don’t care to indulge in.

You may not see it or even believe it, but I am very patient and compassionate with people in real life but also not afraid to draw lines when required.

Again, as I have told you many times, my remarks on this site, outside of the context where I am acting as the Comments Editor, are purely my own opinions and are just as subject to our comments guidelines as those of anybody else.

When I chose the Doc to be my assistant, one of the things I briefed him on was this very point and that it is his responsibility to deal with any of my comments if they do go outside of the guidelines.

He has occasionally edited and/or deleted a few of my remarks and I think there has even been the odd occasion or two when I have done the same for him. Nobody is above the comments policy; I have even edited or deleted comments by my bosses in the past.

I and the Doc are very different people; he is calmer and more patient than me but has bad taste in music, lol; I am both cooler and more passionate, not to say that he is passionless of course, but his levelheadedness is a nice contrast to my energy.

I’m not sure that he could be as “richly and devastatingly insulting” as me, it’s just not his style, and I don’t actually want to be more like him, just as I suspect he doesn’t want to be more like me.

I hope that he knows that I am very open and honest but we don’t tend to spend huge amounts of time discussing such navel gazing stuff. I like to think that our differences complement each other and that is why we are a good team.

This isn’t an insult directed at you, simply explaining something, but I personally find it absurd and weak-minded that you would believe something told to you by one person but disbelieve it when told to you by another. I have learned that it is the message not the messenger that is important.

It is not always the case that honey is more effective than vinegar; some people don’t respond to sweetness and others don’t respond to acid. Personally, I don’t care as much about the style as the content, but clearly that is not the case for everyone. Maybe that is something you should consider…

Glenn Contrarian

Chris –

I don’t actually accept that I have insulted you anyway

Really?

Less than a minute of using Google led me to comments under this article:

Reading on, Glenn, you are even more deluded than I thought you were if you think for one minute that I am going to justify or “prove” my military experience to you. As your raddled little mind can’t retain information and prefers to believe what it wants (and please spare us from any repeats of your bogus assertions that you “at least admit when you are wrong”), you are totally mistaken if you think that I want or need any “credit” from you or that I give a flying fuck whether a deluded loon like you thinks I am “on the up-and-up”. You can either believe what I am telling you or drop dead for all I care.

That’s just in one paragraph in one comment, but it serves to show that apparently your definition of ‘insult’ is different from mine.

Chris, you’re very thoughtful and erudite when you want to be, but you need to learn to accept constructive criticism even from those you really don’t like – and to set the example, I will try (again) to consider the constructive criticism you gave me in your previous comment. I’m not asking you to like me – you can be as caustic as you want, but if you want others to accept your criticisms, then it would behoove you to accept theirs as well, that there are positive lessons you can learn even from people you despise. Exhibit ‘A’ is my reminding you of the insults you don’t accept that you ever gave.

Oh, and one more thing:

It’s interesting that you think I do judge you, but I think that is you projecting, because you seem far more judgemental than me, which is consistent with the faithist mindset, as is the persistent attempt to divine meaning between the lines, a habit I don’t care to indulge in.

If you had cared to ask first before implying that my judgmental tendencies are ‘consistent with a faithist mindset’, I would have quite frankly told you that yes, I do tend to be judgmental and that it is a military thing, for when one has spent many years supervising many people not just on the job but also on their personal conduct 24/7/365, and one’s career depends upon being able to do this and do it well, one begins to generally recognize personalities and tendencies quite quickly – it becomes automatic. You can raise the B.S. flag all you want…but IIRC you only spent two years in the military – you’ve likely never experienced what it’s like to have your career judged by the 24/7/365 conduct of your subordinates.

Glenn, telling it like it is is not an insult, even if the target of the remarks feels insulted. You do have a problem retaining some information, you are deluded and you are a little bit of a loon.

As I have told you repeatedly, I have no opinion at all as to your likeability, whether or not you accept the information I presented is entirely up to you.

Being judgemental IS part of the faithist mindset and how you can even attempt to argue against that observation is simply mindboggling.

Your military argument doesn’t hold water; supervising people is a management function and requires effective decision making. Everybody who works in a hierarchy is assessed by the behaviour of those under their management, it’s a structural thing that is not unique to the military and quite different to the judgemental nature of faithism.

I also don’t accept that being in the military, or any other hierarchy for that matter, conveys any managerial competence or the ability to “generally recognize personalities and tendencies quite quickly”.

In closing then, yes, being judgemental is a faithist thing, regardless of how you try to disguise it as something else.

Doc, I didn’t say I don’t insult people…

Glenn Contrarian

Doc –

And yes, Glenn, you are judgemental, but this is rarely the good thing you seem to think it is. Also, it is not necessary to have been in the military to acquire good judgement.

I never said that being judgmental is a good thing – it isn’t. It is a flaw, and so it is one of my flaws – I’ll freely own up to that (I think a certain quote from the movie ‘Patton’ about prima donnas may apply here if ‘prima donna’ is replaced with ‘judgmental’). Nor did I say or even imply that being in the military is necessary to acquire good judgment…the key word being ‘good’.

And looking at Chris’ last comment, I need say nothing else about him – his post says it all. If anything, I’ve got to go look in the mirror and chastise myself once more for allowing myself to participate in such a puerile exchange. I can be better than that…and a good start would be by deemphasizing a particular first-person pronoun.

P.S. It’s interesting that you spelled judgemental with an ‘e’ whereas Google Chrome gives it a red line – There’s an interesting answer here. It seems to be a “to-MAY-to to-MAH-to” thing.

Oh, afaik I think the judgemental/judgmental issue is just an English v American thing. I don’t know of any usage without the “e” in the UK, despite what it says in Yahoo Answers, but haven’t researched the matter.

Dr Dreadful

Yeah, it’s like inquiry vs. enquiry. Again, that’s largely a question British vs. American usage, and while the “e” version is standard in the UK, I’ve seen both spellings used there and there’s no hard and fast rule.

That’s interesting, I was under the impression that enquiry was used for questions and inquiry for investigations or research.

roger nowosielski

OED should be the best guide here, but I no longer possess it.

S.T.M

Glenn, I think I have pointed this out to you before in regard to your ongoing issues with Chris and your quoting the military: you likely know that Chris was in the British Army for a time. If you think getting judged in the US military 24/7 is tough, the British Army is … well … an absolute stickler for parade-ground-style rules. And there are, oh, so many of them.

Perhaps it’s different now, but it used to be so, and I can’t imagine an organisation like that would be about too much change.

And Chris, Doc is right, you do offend people, and appear to have no issue with having done so.

But offending people and being judgemental – please note, Glenn 🙂 – is part of free speech, which is what this site is about.

Democracy always demands more than one opinion, whether you like that opinion or not.

Glenn Contrarian

Chris –

Glenn, are you actually able to rebut any part at all of my #43 or is your choice to try to depict it as puerile the commenting equivalent of taking your ball home in a sulk?

Did you see these two particular sentences in my reply to Doc?

If anything, I’ve got to go look in the mirror and chastise myself once more for allowing myself to participate in such a puerile exchange. I can be better than that…and a good start would be by deemphasizing a particular first-person pronoun.

In comment #40, you said that you don’t care to attempt to “divine meanings between the lines”. Perhaps you should reconsider that opinion, because in comment #42 Doc was gently but pointedly telling us that our argument was puerile, unbecoming of adults…and he was right. That’s why I said I need to look in the mirror to chastise myself – not chastise you, but myself – for allowing it to go this far. In other words, I need to grow up, to grow a thicker skin, to recognize and correct my own moral and intellectual shortcomings…and to get over myself.

And for his gentle but obvious rebuke, I owe him yet another debt of thanks – I probably owe him a keg instead of a bottle by now.

In other words, I didn’t pick up my ball and walk away in a sulk like a sore loser. I was paying attention to a proper rebuke.

S.T.M

As a footnote, Australia seems to use a mix of British and American English.

I was always told to use judgment without the “e” when it’s about some ordinary person making one, and judgement when it’s a judge handing down a ruling in court.

S.T.M

And there’s a case to me made for genuine civility, as opposed to simply paying lip service to it.

Glenn Contrarian

Stan –

Well said, but with one note – IIRC Chris was in the military for only two years, which means it is very unlikely that he was ever in a true supervisory position. It is thus highly improbable that he really understands what I mean by being responsible for one’s subordinates’ actions 24/7/365. I’m sorry that he takes offense at this, but the likelihood that he can grasp the difference between military and civilian supervision is vanishingly small.

In an article under the ‘Culture’ section, the author claims in so many words that if she adopted a child, the love she would have for that child would be no different from the love of a mother for her biological child. She – like Chris when it comes to military supervision – was not just ignorant, but unaware that she has any such ignorance.

To hold myself to the same standard, I remember more than once going off on a rhetorical tangent and being schooled by Clavos in subjects where his experience was significantly more than my own…and if he was rough about it, I deserved it and am grateful to him for it.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing indeed, particularly when one refuses to acknowledge one’s own ignorance of a matter.

Glenn Contrarian

For all –

Let’s get off the subject of this matter – it is indeed puerile and unbecoming of adults.

Chris – you can have the last word. I’ll read what you say, but I won’t reply with anything more than a thank-you.

S.T.M

My understanding is that Chris was an officer, so he likely was in a supervisory role.Just from what Chris says on here, I find it slightly odd that he might have chosen such a career, and knowing what I do about the British Army, I can see why he might have chosedn to leave.

Also, two years of getting rules and regulations – and very strong traditions – drilled into your head in the British Army might be worth 20 years of it in any other. It’s a very, very tough school.

Having said that, things are a bit different these days – since WWII the modern army has encouraged people to think for themselves and to think outside the square.

Just not outside its long tradition of parade-ground square-bashing, though …

And Chris, sorry for talking about you in the third person while you’re likely on the htread reading it.

Glenn, you’ve pulled that “you can have the last word” stunt several times before but never delivered on it; maybe you will this time, although I won’t be holding my breath… 🙂

For the record, I still consider that you didn’t attempt to rebut my remarks simply because you can’t. Oh, and over 90% of everything you wrote in your #54 is either wrong or self-serving nonsense or both.

Military management is a lesser subset of human affairs than civilian life, not superior to it, and your “advice” to that woman was both offensive and self-servingly trite garbage. I’m sure you will simply take offence, your standard self defence mechanism, but the fact is you aren’t qualified to give people advice.

Your belief that time served, or experience as you refer to it, in any way conveys wisdom or authority is naive, superficial and absurd, and so obviously wrong.

Finally, for the record, I have never been offended by you personally, don’t dislike you or have any hostility at all except towards bullshit arguments – which are unfortunately one of the signature motifs of this time – but that is always the case in times of great upheaval, which is what we are all living through.

Stan, Doc didn’t say I offend people, he said I insult them, which I didn’t deny, although I don’t think it is as common as some people try to make out. That said, it still isn’t an insult to tell the truth even if someone takes offence at it.

Personally I am offended every time some faithist starts babbling on about their totally unsubstantiated creation myths and expects to be taken seriously…